Original subtitles

Major funding provided by the Federal Highway Administration,

introducing travelers to the Lakes-To-Locks Passage,

the Great Northeast Journey,

and All-American Road in the Collection of America's Byways.

Additional funding provided by the New York State Department

of Environmental Conservation,

the New York State Environmental Protection Fund,

and the New York State Hudson-Foulton Champlain Quadra Centennial.

Northline Utilities, Power is our business, Pride is our choice.

The Province of Quebec, celebrating 400 years of shared history

and values with our American neighbors.

This is not how Semirand Ashonkle had imagined his life would end,

wounded and pursued, wandering lost in the forest.

In the evening, we are in one room!

By 1615, Champlain had explored and mapped areas of North America

where no European had dared to venture.

But now, without a guide or a compass to aid him,

he must rely on his senses and his knowledge of the forest to show him the way.

Or die trying.

Champlain first arrived in North America in 1603,

at Tadusak, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.

Where the French had established a trading post,

their only foothold in this land.

We knew very little about Champlain before he arrived at Tadusak.

He may have been about 33 years old at the time.

He was a cartographer, part of a scouting expedition

led by François Pongave, a veteran of many voyages to the St. Lawrence.

Champlain had orders to report to the King of France on what he saw and heard.

The King had plans for this land and its people, the Inu, who the French called Montagnier.

We landed on St. Matthew's Point, where the natives had their lodges,

accompanied by two natives whom he had brought back to their people to report on what they had seen in France,

and of the good reception, the King, or with a great at giving land.

Pongave and Champlain and the two young Inus arrived in the midst of a great victory celebration.

And Anadabiju, the Inu Sagamo, welcomed them into the Council of Elders.

We give thanks to our Norman friends for bringing our sons back to us.

Come, sit beside and tell us what you've seen in their land.

My brothers, we have seen how the Normans live in fine lodges made from rock and wood.

Their King has shown us kindness and sends us to give you a message.

His people desire to live in our land and to help us make peace with the Iroquois.

And if that is not possible, to send men to help us vanquish them.

Our son has spoken well. Their King wants to be our friend.

Do not be deceived by these men with eyes of dogs and hairy faces.

Do not let their strange smell and curious habits fool you.

They will help us to fight the Iroquois.

We are content that your King wants his people to live in our land and make war on our enemies.

There is no one in the world we wish more good than the Normans.

With these words and the celebration that followed, Anadabisio sealed an alliance with the King of France,

an alliance that would endure for a hundred years, allowing both partners to pursue separate goals.

The Indians wanted an ally against the Iroquois.

The French wanted amity and concord in the valley of the St. Lawrence,

and everybody wanted a flourishing fur trade.

The French wanted training partners. They wanted furs. They wanted the beaver.

In the midst of Champagne's career, a revolution occurred in Paris hats.

There was a huge appetite for beaver pelts throughout Europe.

That was a great driver in all of these events.

At the same time, Champagne wanted something more. He wanted knowledge from the Indians.

Have you not seen or heard your ancestors tell that God had come into the world?

In olden times, there were five men who went toward the setting sun and met to Shishi Manetu, the great spirit.

The great spirit asked them, where are you going? The men said, we are seeking our life.

The great spirit answered them. You shall find it here.

The warriors continued on, and the great spirit took a stone and touched two of them, and they turned into stones.

The great spirit said again to the other three, where are you going?

And they answered again, we go in search of our life.

And the great spirit said to them again, go no further. You shall find it here.

And the men seen that nothing happened to them, went on.

And the great spirit took two sticks and touched two of the men, and they turned into trees.

The fifth man halted and would go no further. And the great spirit asked him again, where are you going?

The lone man replied, I am searching for my life.

And the great spirit said, stay, and you shall find it.

The man stayed without going any further. And the great spirit gave him meat, and he ate it.

He returned among his fellow men and told them of his story.

Anadebiju's story may have been meant as a gift for Champlain, to guide his journey in search of a life in this land.

Champlain's mission was to chart the St. Lawrence.

Like explorers of his time, he didn't always know his exact location.

He relied on what was known as dead reckoning, making calculated guesses with crude instruments,

finding his way through this vast land and the people who lived here by guests or by God.

As we begin to approach the rapids, I assure you, I never saw any torrent of water pour over with such force.

He was the first European to see instantly the only way you can explore Canada, the interior of Canada, out of the St. Lawrence,

was with the help of the natives and their canoes.

So he knew it could not be done with European ships, who was willing to junk parts of European technology,

which was a huge step forward for a European. He saw that almost instantly within a day or hour, so he figured that out.

Nobody had before him.

These rapids, near the island the French would later call Moyaal,

had been an unyielding barrier to all their previous efforts to explore the land west of the Great River,

in search of a route to Asia.

North America was an obstacle. It wasn't supposed to be there.

What Champlain and other explorers were looking for was an easier water route to Asia.

They had access to trade with the Orient for spices, silk, exotic goods that had to either be shipped around the Mediterranean or around Africa.

This was envisioned as a shortcut.

When we saw we could do no more, we returned to our ship, where we questioned the natives we had with us, about the end of the river,

which I made them draw by hand, and show its source.

From the maps drawn by an Algonquin guide, Champlain learned about the location of what will be known as the Ottawa River, Niagara Falls, and Lake Ontario.

But it was another great body of water that captured his imagination.

They told us that the water is salty, like that of our sea, which makes me believe this is the Pacific Ocean.

His best way of knowing where he was was to ask the Indians.

They were always his principal source.

The reason that his maps were more accurate than his instruments was that the Indians put him right again and again.

Champlain explored Acadia and New England during the years 1604 to 1607.

His explorations were pursued in the service of the king, who paid nothing for these voyages.

That burden fell on men like Pierre-Dugade-Mour.

These were people who were asked to finance this.

And what they tried to do is get the returns from the fur trade, which was the only really money-making, early money-making thing that there was there.

However, in order to get enough furs were not unlimited.

In order to get enough furs, they needed to pay for all of this. They needed a monopoly.

Champlain returned to the St. Lawrence in the summer of 1608 to complete the exploration of the Great River.

But before he could search for the elusive route to the Pacific Ocean, he first needed to choose a site to establish a permanent French settlement.

A point of land that the Mi'kmaq called Quebec, the Narrows, impressed Champlain.

I searched for a place suitable for a settlement, but I could find none more convenient or better suited than the point of Quebec, which was covered with nut trees.

I at once employed a workman in cutting the trees down, that we might construct our habitation there.

The history of the creation of European settlements in North America is a story of starvation, disease and death.

By the time Champlain arrived in Quebec, no French settlement had yet survived.

He was driving his men very hard. They were racing the seasons, desperately trying to build the vital structures of the colony.

The food was not good. The hours were very long. Champlain was asking his men to work as hard as he did, and he had great stamina.

A man named Jean Duval organized a conspiracy.

octup

Jean-Duivar's plan was to put me to death and getting possession of our fort,

to put it in the hands of the Basquers Spaniards,

by which he hoped to make his fortune.

Hernécism! A family of the other people!

Just as they were in the city.

Jean-Duivar was hanged at Quebec,

and his head was put on the end of a pike

and set up in the most conspicuous place in our fort.

Jean-Duivar's plan was to take a moment to the Basquers' plan.

Jean-Duivar prevented his assassination

and preserved the French settlement for the moment.

But in this land, winter was the ultimate test for all who lived here.

Jean-Duivar's plan was to take a moment to the Basquers' plan.

Jean-Duivar's plan was to take a moment to the Basquers' plan.

Slevo Fradubion.

The square-way began very late, in February.

Eighteen were attacked.

They were almost without strength and suffered in tolerable pains.

The majority of them could not rise, no move will last very much,

on account of the difficulty we had in attending to the Sikh.

The

whole body system starts to break down.

Your blood vessels, your liver, your kidneys, everything starts to break down.

And your sinews contract, you get terrible pains,

you go insane and eventually it kills you. It's a terrible, terrible death.

When a ship arrived from France to resupply the settlement in the spring,

only eight of the 28 men that had joined Jean-Pierre in this voyage were alive.

And half of these were sick.

Jean-Duivar's plan in 1609 received a letter,

informing him that he would be replaced at the end of the season

as the commandant in Quebec.

And then his Indian allies told him that they were having a major problem

with the mohawk, that violence was increasing,

that the strife was getting out of hand.

So Champlain had defined a solution and a quick one,

I think, to all of these problems at once.

To preserve his settlement in Quebec and to explore beyond the Great River,

Champlain had to convince the Algonquin chief, Iraquette,

and Uchetaguan, the chief of the Wendats, whom the French called Hurons,

that he would live up to the agreement that the French had made in 1603.

You have given me fine beaver parents, for which I am grateful.

You see that I have brought nothing to barter for these parents.

I have no other purpose than to go to war with you against your enemies.

Many men come and promise to help us fight our enemies,

who have committed cruel acts against us.

Now this Norman, Champlain, promises to help us with our wars against the Iroquois.

What say you?

Shall we make an alliance with this man?

We have assembled all the warriors you see before you.

They are versed in war and full of courage,

and acquainted with the country and rivers in the land of the Iroquois.

As a token of firm friendship, I ask you to show them your power.

Show me his help.

You shall show us how to build this war.

Let's go!

Champlain agreed to help his allies with their wars,

and in exchange, they allowed him to explore and settle in their lands.

It was a trade that he had to negotiate again and again.

Champlain, a small war party, paddled south on the river of the Iroquois,

in search of the Mohawks, one of the five Iroquois nations.

Champlain was entering into a conflict that began long before his arrival in North America.

For hundreds of years, this river has been the route used for trade and war

by the Iroquois nations to the south, and the Inu, Algonquin, and Wendot nations,

living north and west of the St. Lawrence River.

I don't think he had any idea what he was going to encounter.

Who are the Iroquois?

They made life miserable for the Montagnier, but he knew nothing more about them.

When you read his journal carefully for 1609, the whole thing is getting like an exploratory journal.

He wanted to explore southward anywhere inland.

The Indians had always promised to take him along, and they continued to do so,

but they never came through.

This was a chance to travel inland away from the St. Lawrence and explore those countries.

We entered the lake where I saw four fine islands, which were formerly inhabited by the natives,

but they have abandoned since the wars.

The Abenakis called this large body of water, Beton Baguk, Jean Plant, named it for himself.

When he got to the near the southern end of Lake Champlain, he noticed that his companions were increasingly nervous.

But he wanted to show that the French were up to their promises.

So he used a trick on them. He pretended to have a dream.

They often asked me if I had dreams, and if I had seen their enemies.

I would have been a little bit too late.

I would have been a little bit too late.

After I told them my dream, it gave them so much confidence that they did not doubt any longer that good was to happen to them.

Dreams are a way to fortale. The future are to receive teachings.

The dream is very important, very core element of the culture and of the way people perceive knowledge.

Maybe at some point Champlain understood that and used this knowledge to motivate these people.

After weeks of searching the lake, Champlain and his allies discovered a large group of Iroquois during the night.

The next morning, the war party was ready to reveal their secret weapon.

When they came, my companions and myself continued undercover, for fear that the enemy would see us.

After arming ourselves with light armor, we each took an archiboos and moved into position.

I saw the enemy come out of their barricade.

They came at a slow pace towards us, with dignity and assurance, which greatly impressed me.

I was told that those who had three large plumes were the chiefs and that I should do what I could to kill them.

I promised to do all in my power to show them my courage.

They at once noticed me and halting, gazed at me as I did also a dime.

I had loaded my archiboos with four balls.

When our side saw this shot, they began to raise such loud cries that one could not have heard it thunder.

Meanwhile, arrows flew on both sides.

Seeing their chiefs dead, Nelos courage took to flight, fleeing into the woods where I pursued them, killing still more of them.

Their purpose was certainly not to fight a war conquest.

What he was doing was waging war for the sake of peace.

He wanted to use a punitive expedition as a way of restoring peace to the St. Lawrence Valley.

Soon after defeating the band of Iroquois, Champs-Plays allies divided up the captives who were prized by both sides as replacements for fallen warriors.

But their capture also provided a chance to settle old scores.

This poor wretch uttered terrible cries, and it excited my pity to seem treated in this manner.

And yet, he showed such firmness that one would have said at times that he suffered hardly any pain at all.

And he was not a warhead.

You must stop this torture! It is not how you should treat a captured soldier!

I am willing to fire a musket shot at him and aid his life.

If you do that, then he will not suffer any pain, as he should, for what he and his people have done to us.

Yeah!

I want away from them, pain, to see such cruelty as they practiced upon his body.

His intervention there, I think, can be read as, in a sense, almost a patriarchal moment, where he wants to sort of situate himself as the authority or father figure to kind of get all this to stop, because he finds it disgusting.

He finds it unseemly on becoming, and he wishes it would stop. And he feels he has the imperative to go ahead and do this.

I want to do this.

I want to do this. I want to do this.

I want to do this.

When they saw that I was displeased, they called me.

Before parting company, Sean Play and his new allies exchanged gifts and promises of friendship.

I want to do this. I want to do this.

They were all well-satisfied with the results of the war, and that I had accompanied them so readily, and they asked me whether I would not like to go to their country and continue our friendship.

I promised that I would do so.

The account of my voyage afforded his Majesty great pleasure and satisfaction.

I want to do this. I want to do this. I want to do this. I want to do this. I want to do this.

While King Aarhi IV was pleased with Sean Play's report, he said nothing about extending the monopoly over the fur trade for Sean Play's employer, Cail Jugade Mon.

Henry IV was ambivalent because he was giving monopolies to individuals or companies, yet at the same time he always revoked them before term because he was pressed on all parts by individuals or other merchants or traders who wanted to build their own affairs in the new continent.

By 1610, other European powers were starting to compete with the French in North America.

The English had established a settlement at Jamestown.

The Dutch claimed what is now Manhattan and lower New York State.

And Spanish and Basque merchants were fierce rivals of the French for dominance of the lucrative fur trade on the St. Lawrence.

In April 1610, Sean Play returned to Tatusack, determined to pursue his quest to find the route to Asia.

But to do that, he needed to negotiate access to the interior with his allies, the Inus.

Here are numerous Basques and Normans, who say they will go to war with us.

What do you think of it? Do they speak the truth?

No. They only make such promises to get possession of your fur.

You have spoken the truth. They want to make war only upon our beavers.

I assure you that we will go with you to war, as I promised you.

You also promised me that upon our return from the war you would take me to the sea so large that the end of it cannot be seen.

Do you still intend to do this?

Yes, we will. But it cannot be carried out before you return to France. We must depart now to go to the river of the Iroquois, where we will find our enemy.

Unfettered mobility was critical to what he wanted to do, and they were not allowing that. And that frustrated.

But Native people were always very careful to make sure that there were close tabs kept on Champlain and there were limits to what he was allowed to do.

They were very careful to make sure that the power, knowledge was power. And if they gave away the store, Champlain, they feared, and I think quite rightly would have no more use for them. So it was a game back and forth.

The second time Champlain fought against the Iroquois may have been part of an elaborate game with his allies, but it turned deadly very quickly.

Some of the best men of the Watanye had been killed and several wounded.

The end of the arrow was armed with a very sharp stone. Yet my wound did not prevent me from doing my duty.

Champlain barely survived another battle. He had fulfilled his promise to stop the raids by the Moax, but he was no closer to exploring the land beyond the rapids.

And events in France soon halted all efforts by Champlain to pursue his search for a passage to Asia.

On May 4th, 1610, Ari the 4th was assassinated while riding in his carriage through the streets of Paris.

The execution of the King's assassin was as gruesome as any torture the Inus or Algonquins inflicted upon their captives.

The sudden death of Ari the 4th was a great setback for Champlain and all who worked to sustain France's presence in North America.

For the new King, Louis the 13th was only nine years old and his mother, Merida Medici, was now the regent, and she had no interest in New France.

So Champlain didn't really know who was going to be his next superior. He didn't know exactly what companies or companies were going to be granted monopolies, etc.

So he wasn't even sure if he was going to come back in 1611. So it really must have been a traumatic experience for him to reach Europe and to learn that the King of France had been assassinated.

Within months of the King's assassination, Champlain married Elen Boule, the 12-year-old daughter of a high official in the court of the young King.

As part of the marriage contract, Champlain received a very large dowry.

More importantly, he secured the support of a powerful ally at court.

The wedding itself had been a great success. The marriage was a disaster. We dove very little about the inner life of this marriage, but it seemed to always to have a kind of tragic error to it even in the period when it went well.

And then later it fell apart again. And she announced that she wanted to go into a nunnery. Champlain refused his permission.

And they had a kind of separation of goods as an agreement. And then after his death, she went into a convent.

Through his new connections in court, Champlain was put in charge of new France.

His judgement was soon tested by a young Frenchman, whom he had sent the year before to live with the Algonquins.

And then he returned to Paris in 1612, that he had seen the North Sea.

And that in 17 days, one could go from the rapid study sea and pack again.

And there is more, Monsieur de Champlain. I saw a wreck. The debris of an English ship on the shores of this great South Sea.

The natives showed me the scarps of the 80 crewmen who they killed for stealing mace from them.

And they showed me a young English boy whom they kept as a prisoner, and would surely give you, if you should come to the North Sea.

Your report pleases me greatly, for you have found what I have for a long time in searching.

But you must tell me the truth, so that I might inform his Majesty.

If you lie, you will be putting a rope about your neck. But if your narrative be true, you will be rewarded.

Je suis jour qu' tous-cous-d'ir-rei-meissur de Champlain.

Vignot may have been speaking of the English explorer, Henry Hudson, who thought he had found a northern route to Asia.

But instead, Hudson discovered a giant inlet where he became stranded. His crew revolted and set him adrift in a small boat.

Never to be heard from again.

Reports of the mutiny in what is now called Hudson Bay reached Champlain, France, by 1612.

Champlain returned to North America in 1613 to verify Vignot's story.

He began a journey that finally allowed him to explore the land of the Algonquins and to search for a Northwest Passage to Asia.

Great skills required in passing these rapids. But the native studies with the greatest possible dexterity, winding about and going by the easiest places, which they recognize at a glance.

For the first time since arriving in North America ten years earlier, Champlain was able to explore beyond the rapids that had blocked Europeans from penetrating the interior of this great land.

I think it's really difficult to appreciate the physical hardship and endurance that much of this overland trial required of people during the 17th century.

Champlain was one of the few Europeans who appears to have approached it at least in his early years with some zeal, some enthusiasm.

He relished it, he appears to have enjoyed it. Not many did.

After months of traveling over rugged lands and dangerous rapids, Champlain and his party arrived at an Algonquins village.

The very same village where his guide, Nico Laude Vignot, had lived the year before.

Champlain needed to convince the Algonquins chief, Tessawat, to help him verify Vignot's story of the existence of the North Sea in the land of the Nippissings.

I know this man. He is Champlain.

He has the marks from the war with the Iroquois.

But I cannot believe my eyes. You must have fallen from the clouds to be here with us.

For we who live in these lands have much trouble passing the rapids and bad paths between the lakes.

We must have a tabegi in your honor and hear of your deeds.

I desire to see a tribe distant six days journey from you called the Nippissing.

I ask you to assist me and give me four cano with eight men to guide me to these lands.

We have feelings for you as we do for our children.

And that is why we beg you not to go to the Nippissings, for you will endure many hardships on the journey.

And they are sorcerers who have caused the death of many of our people by charms and poisoning.

The Nippissing Witchcraft will have no power to harm me, as my God will preserve me from them.

I have a young man who has been in their country and had not found the people so bad as the people who have been in their country.

And had not found the people so bad as you assert.

Niekolas, te boy nya, kiki wijiwak, nibis e, kai jini caso acch?

E, e, nidae den aban, ima.

You are a liar. You know well that you slept at my side every night along with my children, where you arose every morning.

If you were among the Nippissings, it was while you were sleeping.

How could you be so bold as to lead your chief to believe lies, and so wicked as to be willing to expose his life to so many dangers?

You are worthless.

Champlain, you have done us a great wrong to trust this liar more than we who are your friends.

I must speak with this man alone.

We must know the truth. You must tell us if you have seen the things you have said or not.

If you do not tell me the truth, I will have you hanged as your reward.

Please pardon me. Everything I have said here and in France was false. I have never seen the sea. I have never gone further than this village.

I did not think that you would undertake the journey. I said these things to return to this round.

If you will leave me here, I will find the sea, even if I should die in the attempt.

Remove this man from my sight.

Having my journey terminated in this mother, and without any hope of seeing the sea except in my imagination,

I regret that I should have employed my time better.

Despite failing to find the North Sea, Champlain secured new backers, and in June 1615 began what would be his longest journey within the interior of North America.

He traveled 500 miles past the rapids that had once been a barrier beyond where he discovered Vigno's treachery to the land of the nipposings,

whom the Algonquins called sorcerers, but who proved to be friendly to him.

Finally, on August 1st, Champlain entered a large body of water that he had been told for years was as vast as the sea,

and consisted of salt water.

That realization that the water at Lake Hern was not salt water probably was a devastating moment for Champlain,

because it meant that this wasn't the way we were going to get to Asia.

It could have meant he was heading in the wrong direction completely.

It meant that he had to sort of recalibrate the kinds of information he got from Native people thereafter, so yeah, I'm sure it was a tough moment for him.

Champlain's spirit was fortified by a new passion to bring his Christian God to the people who lived in the vast interiors of this wild land.

He convinced a lay brother from a Franciscan order to accompany him to the land of the Wendats.

The people here were permanently settled and were fond of cultivation of the soil, but they lived without God and religion, like brute beasts.

I felt that I should take it upon myself to plant there the faith.

Like so many times before, Champlain struck a bargain with his native allies.

In exchange for bringing a priest to live in their land, he promised to help the Wendats fight their enemy, the Onondagas, one of the five Iroquois nations.

It was very necessary to assist them, not only to oblige them to harvest more, but also to facilitate my explorations, which would be a preparatory step to their conversion to Christianity.

They went off to the eastern end of Lake Ontario into what is now up in New York State. They stashed their canoes, then they started overland, and that's where you really sort of lose track of where he was going.

He did cause the river that leads into Lake Onida, and from there he might have gone south towards the Onida or more southwest towards the Onondaga.

But the Onondaga knew they were coming. They must have known they were coming. They have the fishing parties in the fall, who have come back and say, hey, there's a whole bunch of canoes coming with the Huron and some funny-looking people in it.

And they've already would have heard about the French years beforehand. So they knew they were coming. They were all ready for them.

Under Chonpla's direction, the Wendats and Algonquins built a firing platform in one night.

His plan was to shoot at the Onondaga's from the platform, allowing his allies to set fire to the fort below.

A plan based on his training in siege warfare in Europe, not hand-to-hand combat in North America.

The enemy shouted at us that we should not interfere in their combat, and that our natives had very little courage to require us to assist them.

Chonpla soon realized that he was not in command of the warrior fighting beside him.

There arose such a disorder among them that they began to scream at their enemies, shooting arrows into the fort, which did little harm.

In vain did a shout in their ears as to the danger to which they exposed themselves, but they heard nothing.

I did nothing more, but to do what we could and fire upon any enemy we could see.

The Onondaga fort proved to be much more formidable than the temporary palisades that Chonpla and his allies had attacked twice before.

Champlain was disgusted with the conduct of his allies who refused to listen to what he told them to do.

They were disgusted with him for his kind of ideas about what he wanted to accomplish in this battle, and everyone went home disappointed and injured.

Since I could not stand up, they proceeded to make a basket for carrying the wounded.

I have never found myself in such a prison as during this time.

The pain which I suffered in consequence of the wound in my knee was nothing in comparison with that which I endured while I was carried on the back of one of our natives.

When the war party reached the place where they had hidden their canoes near the headwaters of the St. Lawrence, Chonpla was ruled by the enemy.

I am ready to head downriver to Quebec.

I am not going with you. You promised you would take me to our settlement by Canoe on the great river that is born near here.

That is not possible. We have no canoes that we can give you.

You will go with us now before our enemies come.

This greatly annoyed me since they had promised to guide me to our settlement after their war.

Moreover, I was poorly prepared for spending the winter with them, but not being able to do anything.

I resigned myself to my fate.

To have gone along the St. Lawrence with the rapids and so on, it is likely the Iroquois would have caught up with them.

And Champlain would have been killed. At least they did not want to take the risk.

So they decided to watch them very closely and take them back to the village.

On the way back to their villages, the Wendot Warriors invited Champlain to join them in a deer hunt.

Though he was not fully recovered from his wounds, he agreed.

When I went out hunting, I saw a bird that seemed to me peculiar.

It had a beak like that of a parrot and was of the size of a hen.

It was entirely yellow except the head which was red and the wings which were blue.

The desire to kill it led me to pursue it from tree to tree for a very long time.

I found myself lost in the woods.

Having forgotten to bring with me a small compass.

Tired and exhausted, I began to consider the way to the forest.

I began to consider the way to the forest.

Tired and exhausted, I began to consider what I should do.

And to pray to God that he gave me the courage to patiently endure my misfortune.

Should I remain abandoned in this wilderness?

You may have felt his own ignorance.

You may have felt how alone he is at this land.

He hears at this land if he doesn't listen to the people who I've been living here.

He may have understood that he's not from this world.

Where are you going?

I am searching for my life.

Stay and you shall find it.

I am not going to be able to do anything.

Since I had nothing to eat, I gathered up renewed courage.

But I was obliged to pass here this night also.

The wisdom of this story is also that you really have to listen to the...

to what comes to you when you are in this land.

Because the people who live here, they know much more than you think.

What is going on and what it needs to live and to survive in this land.

And if you listen, then if you respect people who are here, you will be able to find what you're looking for.

I arrived in the camp of the Anters to the great pleasure, not only of myself, but of them, who were still searching for me.

I was given up all hopes of seeing me again.

I was given up all hopes of seeing me again.

They begged me not to stray from them anymore or to forget to carry my compass.

Champlain was a dreamer.

He dreamed of that passage to China.

But I think his larger dream was about this new place called New France.

In North America, it was a dream of people who could live with other people, unlike themselves, in amity and concord.

Like the warrior in Anadabiju's story, Champlain ended his search.

After he returned to Quebec in the summer of 1616, he never again searched for a passage to Asia.

Nor joined his allies in combat.

He devoted the next 19 years of his life tirelessly working to create permanent French settlements,

at peace with the people who had shown him how to live in this rich, wild land.

MUSIC

Hello, I'm Tom Helick, along with Frank Christopher, an award-winning filmmaker and producer of a new documentary called Dead Reckoning, Champlain in America.

And Frank, why use animation?

You know, I've done many films, documentaries, some historical, some not, and this film really gave us an opportunity to recreate a world that in some ways is not there.

The scene that you saw in the opening of this piece, it opens with a parrot.

Actually, it's called a Carolina parakeet. That bird is extinct.

And yet to me, that was an important part of the story.

Now, people for 40 years thought this was a fantasy bird, or a hallucination, but it was real to Champlain enough so that he was distracted from his hunting with his wind out allies.

It became lost in the forest for three days.

And he chased this bird and never could capture it. And that fascinated me. He was looking for this elusive route to China.

In a sense, this was a kind of, for me, a metaphor of that quest.

And yet that bird has not been identified until this project.

We were able to send the description to the Ornithology Lab at Cornell, and through their good work, we've discovered that most likely was a Carolina parakeet.

And one of my advisors sent me a replica of a clay pipe, the wind up. The Huron, as the French would call them, had built with the head of that bird.

So we think that Champlain actually saw this bird, and that helps us in a couple ways. It verifies that his writings were concrete. They were material. They weren't just fantasy.

And it, for me, gives us a wonderful opening because it's something that doesn't exist, and yet we're able to rediscover it.

For more information about the making of dead-recating Champlain in America and educational lesson plans, visit our program website at ChamplainInAmerica.org.

Or you can purchase a DVD of the program with bonus behind the scenes material by sending 1995 plus shipping and handling or calling the number on your screen.

Major funding provided by the Federal Highway Administration, introducing travelers to the Lakes Deluxe Passage, the great Northeast Journey, and all American Road in the collection of America's Byways.

Additional funding provided by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the New York State Environmental Protection Fund, and the New York State Hudson-Foulton Champlain Quadra Centennial.

Northline utilities, power is our business, pride is our choice.

The province of Quebec, celebrating 400 years of shared history and values with our American neighbors.